Welcome to my blog!

Hi Guys!

Welcome to my blog.

This is kind of a diary and will tell the story of a challenge that I'm taking on in August.

First things first, let me introduce myself to you.

My name is Paul, I'm 31 years old and I'm a professional photographer. I am engaged to a beautiful lady called Esther and we have a little cat called Nancy. I love food, sports and music, all of which I'll make bigger references to as this blog progresses I'm sure.

I am getting married in September, and I wanted to do something crazy beforehand. I do alot of photographic work for both Comic Relief and Sport Relief, and have been involved in shooting various famous people training for challenges to raise money for both charities. Most notably I was Christine Bleakley's photographer for the whole of her Waterski Challenge for Sport Relief in 2010. For anyone who doesn't know, Christine is a TV presenter who having never been waterskiing before, trained for 5 months and went across the English Channel in choppy seas in the freezing cold weather of that March.
I watched her all the way through, from her first ever session,  and was inspired at her dedication, focus and drive to overcome the danger and the adversity of the challenge and complete it with real class.
Being involved in things like that really move you and I saw my Wedding as a great excuse to put myself on the line, get some people together, raise some money and maybe even inspire someone else.

What I have decided to do is to cycle down to Cornwall from London, to travel from my Nan's house in South London, to go and see my other Nan who lives down near Redruth. It's about 350 miles and is going to be tough, especially as the terrain in Cornwall is pretty up and down.

I have asembled a little team of people to cycle with me - i'll tell you more about them next time.

I have chosen to raise money for the British Heart Foundation, as both sides of my Family has been affected by heart problems. My Cornwall Nan lost her husband to heart disease before I was born. I have heard so much about William Randall, and would have loved to have met him. I am told I am the spitting image of him. I love seeing pictures of him, and hearing all the stories about him. It might sound strange, but I feel really close to him, even though we never met.
My London Nan suffered major heart problems a few years ago and is now powered by a pacemaker, I am so grateful that she was able to be given the opportunity to live a relatively normal life again. She is amazing, and shouldn't do as much as she does. She can't help it though, she is just so generous.
I want other families to have the chance to stay together for longer.
I am also ha massive boyzone fan, and was devastated when Stephen Gately died in October 2009 from a rare heart condition. I was lucky enough to meet Stephen, he was a ball of joy, a fantastic man. I treasure having met him.

I am going to use this blog to keep everyone up to date with everything to do with our challenge, how my training has been and how we are doing during the challenge itself.

I have started a justgiving page for people to sponsor us, if you can, it will make a massive difference.

http://www.justgiving.com/justgottarideit

Thanks for reading my first ever blog post! I'm sure I'll get better at it!

Paul